Family South Platte Stewardship Day 2021

On the first day of May, SPREE, family, and friends saw wonderful weather in Johnson Habitat Park as 50 participants gathered to help clean up the South Platte River and the surrounding park. This year looked different from Spring Stewardship Days of years past but the enthusiasm was higher than ever. 
This year participants were able to help on two different tasks; one cleaning the river by finding and removing invasive mud snails (learn more here!), and the other by picking up trash in and around Johnson Habitat Park and SPREE Headquarters. Participants were also the very first to see, use, take, and leave books in the SPREE Little Library, located just across the path from SPREE HQ.

Trash removal was a huge success with the collection and elimination of over 10 bags of trash from the river to road. Many plastic water bottles and bags were saved from washing further down the river as one participant donned chest high waders and removed trash from within the creek! Lots of bikers and passersby shouted ‘thank you’s’ and ‘keep it up’s’ to picker-uppers to encourage their good work.  ​

Snail removal was equally as successful even with the recent heavy rains that had the river flowing higher than usual for this time of year (that is a really good thing!). 538 invasive New Zealand mud snails were scraped from large rocks a few feet off shore. It was difficult to find them at first, but with perseverance our determined river volunteers were able to excavate them to make room for other native snails looking for habitat.

By noon the park was looking clean from river to road and many ducks, geese, and even kids were ready to get back to using the park. We played pin the tail on the beaver, a duck bill bean bag toss, and many enjoyed the playgrounds big and small. Families went home with some recycle based crafts and activities to share as well as doggy bags and doggy bag holders to keep their local green spaces clean too. Overall a great day spent supporting each other, parks, wildlife and so much more.